Autistic Lad Receives Thousands Of Birthday Cards After Telling His Mum He 'Had No Friends'

An autistic boy, whose mum made a public appeal for messages and cards after he told her he had no friends, had received a whopping 20,000 cards on his birthday yesterday.Ollie Jones broke his mother's heart after he made two cards for himself because he was not expecting to get one from anyone else.Mum Karen, 49, then posted a plea on Facebook asking for strangers to send her son cards. The response was astounding.By the time Ollie turned 15 yesterday he had received an estimated 20,000 cards, messages and presents - from all across the world.

Karen, a single mum who volunteers as a support worker for parents with autism, said: "My son made two birthday cards."He has no friends because of his autism and when I saw he had made the cards it pulled my heart strings."I thought maybe we could just try to get him a few extra cards this year."So, I put a little post on Facebook asking people to send him birthday cards and now I'm having messages from all over the world."His birthday haul dwarfs the 17,000 sent to the Queen for her birthday each year.

Huge stack of boxes began arriving on Thursday and kept arriving - with the house filled to the brim with well-wishers messages. Karen said she had no idea about the final number but it was at least 20,000 cards, with hundreds of gifts, including an Xbox One sent from Saudi Arabia.Speaking about the outpouring of birthday wishes, Ollie said: "No one gives me birthday cards, just me."It's fab, amazing and fun - but not so many next year please mum."Where are we going to put them all?"Great effort by everyone who sent Ollie a card, looks like he's got more friends than he initially thought.